Page 107 of Finding Amanda

Chris barely smiled at them.

A prickling on the back of his neck told Mark he wasn't going to like whatever Chris was about to tell him. "What's wrong?"

"Let's sit down."

Mark lifted the game board and placed it on the counter. The sound of cartoons filled the space, but Mark didn't move to turn the volume down. He didn't think he wanted his girls to hear whatever Chris had to say.

"I didn't have time to pick up my messages until about nine o'clock last night. I got a call from the detective who arrested Sheppard. Detective Diaz. Remember I called him a couple of weeks ago?"

Mark nodded.

"He's been on leave. His wife had a baby. Anyway, he just got back yesterday. I left him a message to call me back ASAP. He did about an hour ago."

"Okay."

Chris took a sip of his coffee and set it on the table. "They dropped the statutory rape charges because their star witness, the victim, disappeared."

Mark swallowed the reaction that tried to escape. “What do you mean, she disappeared?"

"Diaz told me the prosecutor offered Sheppard a pretty good deal—such a good deal Diaz was furious. But Sheppard refused. He was sure he would win at a trial—that's what he told the prosecutor, I guess. And then the trial was put-off and put-off, so it was more than a year later before it was scheduled to start. Sheppard had already lost his medical license, and he was working at a community college at that point. Anyway, it was a couple of weeks before Christmas. The trial was supposed to start the second week of January. And the girl was walking home from school after a meeting of some sort—student council or something. She walked home every night, according to this detective. It was about five o'clock, dark outside of course, but she walked with her friend. Her friend lived just a couple of blocks away."

"What town?"

"Everett. I don't know if you've been there, but it's right outside of Boston, still pretty urban."

"Okay. Go on."

"So the friend went home, and this girl only had two blocks to go. But she never made it home."

Mark's heart hammered so hard, he was sure the girls would hear it over their cartoons.

"They never found her. Never found a trace of her or her body anywhere."

"Are you saying you think Sheppard killed her?"

"The thing is, he has a rock-solid alibi. He was Christmas shopping. He has receipts to prove it. But even then, Diaz was sure he was lying—maybe gave his credit card to someone else. So they looked at the surveillance tapes from the mall, and he's there, in the tapes, at the same time the girl was snatched."

"But obviously someone close to him did it."

"That's what Diaz thought, too. But the wife was at their daughter's dance class in Andover—witnesses saw her there the whole time. Sheppard's son was seventeen and had a driver's license and a car, but he was playing in a basketball game in Tewksbury at the time. Hundreds of witnesses. Diaz checked on Sheppard's former receptionist, an unlikely partner in crime, but he'd suspected that Sheppard and the woman had more to their relationship than boss and employee. But she had a new job by then, and she was at work. The detective hit a dead end."

"But obviously Sheppard did it somehow. He paid someone or something. Somebody helped him."

"I agree. Diaz agrees, but there's no evidence. No witnesses, no body. They never charged him, and they had no choice but to drop the charges against him."

Mark massaged his temples. Sheppard was a murderer. If he didn't kill the girl himself, he had someone else do it. He'd beenwilling to kill to stay out of prison. But would he be willing to kill now, to protect his reputation?

"There's more," Chris said.

Mark buried his rising fear. "Okay."

"We were near the university yesterday, and we had a few minutes' downtime before meeting with a witness, so I stopped by the psychology department and chatted with the office manager. She's the same one who told me about Baxter McIlroy, and she seemed happy to talk. She told me Sheppard isn't tenured yet. He was up for it a few years ago, but there were some rumors about him and a couple of his female TA's and even a couple of students and some suspicious after-hours meetings. This lady didn't believe it—seems to think Sheppard's a saint. But the rumors kept him from receiving tenure. Well, he's up for it again next year."

Mark rubbed his temples. "He has to keep his reputation squeaky clean."

"Yup. And having a book out detailing an affair with a teenaged patient might keep him from getting his tenure, even if it doesn't name him. Rumors were enough last time, so?—"

"He's already killed once," Mark whispered, almost afraid to say the words. "If he was willing to kill an innocent child to protect himself, he'd be more than willing to kill a grown woman."

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